Guess who's back
by bhut
Summary: Post season 5 AU. When time gets broken all sorts of people get a second chance...
1. Chapter 1

**Guess who's back?**

_Disclaimer:_ _none__of__the__characters__are__mine,__but__belong__to__Impossible__Pictures__._

In the beginning, there was chaos. Philip Burton fell as if he was being thrown around in every possible direction at the same time with live DC currents running through him at the same time.

And then there came a word, and the word was "Stop." (Simultaneously, there was a sound and a feeling of a switch being turned on.) And miraculously, the chaos stopped. Philip suddenly found himself sitting on the floor in a crude version of a lab (well, not really crude, except for Prospero's standards), plus in front of a woman with whom he had regular talks online for the last few years.

"Helen Cutter!" he said excitedly. "What an honour to finally in person!"

There was a pause as the woman of Philip's dreams (in a manner of speaking) looked at him very oddly indeed. "Really?" she said in a very careful voice. "Fascinating, and I'm sorry, but my memory was very faulty lately, due to certain experiments that I have done with myself. Can you please remind me who you are?"

"Philip Burton," her interlocutor replied, his excitement replaced now by confusion. "Oh yes, the Christmas of 78. I remember."

"Um, I thought that we agreed never to mention it again," Philip said, now feeling decisively wary. "In fact, I expressed that I was very grateful that you agreed never to hold it against me-"

"And I won't," Helen said with an earnestness that made Philip believe her. "That said, I mentioned that year because it was the last time we met in person, correct?"

"Well, yes," Philip said thoughtfully, realising that what Helen said _was_ truth. "But we had plenty of talks online-"

"Oh, dear," Helen exclaimed and took another look at the crude lab around her. "I'm sorry to tell you this, but I believe that somebody was impersonating me to have you achieve their goals."

"What?" Burton stared. "Are you saying that you don't believe that the energy of time can be harnessed to achieve a new source of pollution-free fuel? That time isn't a new source of energy?"

Now Helen stared at him as if he stated that she didn't believe that the moon was made from green cheese. "Philip – Dr. Burton, I remember that you were in engineering, so let me draw you a scheme."

She pulled out a knife – an Indian kukri by the look of it, and sketched something resembling a crude sausage on the floor with it. "There! This is the basic flow of time, from the future to present to past. We're moving from the past to the future, of course, but that is not the point. My point is that the time anomalies are what they are because they compress millions of years worth of time into a very, very thin sheet, so to speak."

"And that takes a lot of energy that can be harnessed," Philip suggested helpfully. Helen just gave him a look.

"No. Well, maybe, but were you listening? It's still time, that same time that we're living in! Time is one smooth, united process! You mess with it at one time, and the whole process – and that's milliards of years – begins to shake and break down! You could've destroyed this entire dimension completely!" Helen's voice, formerly even began to rise. "You – engineer! Even Nick's little sycophant had more sense than you!"

"I know," Philip confessed. "But you – or someone like you – well, finding a pollution-free source of energy is Prospero's main goal. I'm not just an engineer, you know?"

"You like building or making machines, don't you?" Helen asked back tartly. "You always will be an engineer at heart, just like I'm an anthropologist." Her voice softened now. "Anyways, it seems that the crisis is past and you haven't been able to destroy Earth and the rest of this dimension."

It was then that April fell. On the floor, from the ceiling, facing Helen. "I'm dead," she muttered weakly. "That blonde dwarf, Maitland... and it's you," she addressed Helen, failing to see Philip at the moment.

"And another mystery solved," Helen muttered softly, as she reached towards a weird-looking crystal pendant that was on April's neck. "Hello, oh daughter of Vigdis."

"Helen, that you," April muttered weakly, still clearly unfocused and not wholly there. "You had the last laugh, again..."

"Who's Vigdis?" Philip was feeling lost again.

"Let's see," Helen looked thoughtfully. "In two hundred years – that's the twenty-second going onto twenty-third century – humans will develop space travel to the point where they'll be off to colonize other planets and their moons. Back on Earth, however, they'll continue to experiment with their genetic make-up creating new species of hominins and hominids, not to mention mutant versions of their own selves... To make a long story brief, this all resulted in collapse of our civilization and extinction of our species several centuries after the space exploration age..."

"Prove it," Philip said. "Mutants?"

"Yes, of course," Helen nodded serenely and took off the pendant from April's neck. Immediately, the blonde began to grow in height and broaden in the shoulders, her hair parted from the back of her head and began to hang down from the sides of it, and her skin actually turned purplish. Still, it was the rudimentary face on the back of her head that finally convinced Burton that she wasn't a regular person. "April," he half-said, half-whispered. "You're a mutant?"

"Yes," April agreed, before finally recovering her senses fully. "I mean no. I mean – where's my pendant?"

"In my keeping," Helen spoke up, smiling rather nastier. "Hello again, April. Clearly, for all of your posturing you really do have only half of your mother's wit, do you not?"

"Um, can I have it back? Please?" April/not April said in a small voice.

"Hmm," Helen made a show of thinking, before quickly kicking April in the gut, causing her to bend double. "Of course, here you go." She slipped the pendant back onto April's neck, and within moments April looked wholly human, albeit still bent double. "Go forth and never impersonate me again, or else I will remind you why I am still standing and your mother is not."

"Duly noted, "April grunted, straightening back up. "Oh, and by the way? My father has been a regular human, so this kick did hurt."

"My apologies," Helen shrugged. "Anyways-"

"While it is nice to see that you two are getting along so well," Philip Burton decided to interject himself into this conversation before he got left behind in it for good, when his phone rang. "Yes? Who is it? Ah, Mr. Minister. I am currently-" he blinked and looked around taking a better look at his surroundings for the first time. "Ah. Well, I am still at my company's testing grounds, only my latest experiment hasn't gone as I expected it to – such things tend to happen with new inventions, even mine. James Lester thinks I'm dead? Well, sir, to be frank the professional relationship between the two of us has been full of misunderstandings and miscommunications from the start so I am not surprised that _this_ has happened. If you don't mind, my assistant and I will be here shortly to clear it up. A shareholders' meeting? No problem."

Philip put his phone down and looked at the two women. "Does either of you know a Dame Frevisse? You see, she has shares in the ARC, alongside Prospero and the government, of course, and her presence is needed at the ARC – the minister is holding a court there-"

"I'll go and get her," Helen said, smiling slightly as if she was in on some sort of joke that Philip wasn't. "I'll see you soon." With these words she walked into the shadows and was gone.

"So, that's the actual Helen Cutter," Burton said thoughtfully. "Interesting woman, but not the only one. April, let's go. We're up for a long ride, a longer talk and an even longer day, full of her Majesty's government among other things."

"Yes sir," April nodded meekly and they left.

_To__be__continued._


	2. Meeting with James Lester

**Meeting****with****James****Lester**

_Disclaimer: see previous chapters._

The ride to the ARC (apparently the minister decided to hold his court there) was decidedly quiet. And also slightly uncomfortable, until Burton decided that this silence went on far enough. "So, you're a mutant," he decided to go for the nearest elephant in the room. "How does it work?"

"Look, Dr. Burton," April said, sounding decisively miserable, "the thing is that it is genetic. My mother was born with DNA that went wrong, for the lack of a better word, but she was still a human – and my father was a regular human, and I, well-"

"I understand," Philip said carefully, suspecting that April was on a verge of a tearful breakdown, something that Burton had his own issues with. "You're a human, just with a different shade of skin and some extra features, right?"

"Exactly!" April said excitedly, before withdrawing into herself once again. "In the future, people – regular people – they don't see it this way: if you're born with extra features, you're cast out into the wilderness beyond the settlements, and your chances of surviving are very slim. My mother, however, managed. She even built her own tribe, myself included, and..." she trailed away.

"So how did you meet Dr. Cutter?" Burton asked instead, suspecting that some sensitive issues lay ahead.

"I don't know. Back then we thought that she was a cast-out from the local settlement - sometimes these things just happened, you know? When, however, she began to help those lizards learn the alphabet and numbers and the like, we realized that we had a chance to get our grip upon something great."

"Interesting choice of words," Burton said diplomatically. "But Dr. Cutter doesn't look like a person who enjoys being gripped."

"She isn't," April admitted grimly. "She believes that humanity was tied to civilization, and was helping those lizards to build their own, but when my mother offered an alliance to her to reclaim that civilization," you could hear the acid in April's voice when she mentioned that word, "by force, she refused."

"Your mother didn't take it well, I assume?" Philip asked, speaking gently.

"Yes," April nodded. "That was her last and biggest mistake, perhaps. Dr. Burton, do not underestimate her-"

"April," Philip interrupted his assistant, "Dr. Cutter pulled me out of the time anomaly vortex that I, and apparently you and the rest of the lab got sucked into. I don't know yet how, but obviously she got us all out of there, so, well, you're preaching to a believer here... what?" he asked, seeing how April was staring at him with big and incredulous eyes.

"Uh," but before April could continue, their car arrived at their ARC building, and there was another car in the parking lot already. Helen Cutter was standing next to it, dressed conservatively (in a professional manner) and holding a slight briefcase.

"How do you do, Dr. Burton, Ms. Leonard?" she asked nonchalantly, while shaking their hands. "I'm Dame Freisse, and I am so pleased to finally meet you. The circumstances of our meeting could've been better – the minister sounded very upset over the phone – but here we are. Shall we go inside?"

"Yes, let's," April nodded equally nonchalantly while Philip was stupefied. "The minister waits."

/

Once inside the ARC Philip felt his shock at his second in-person meeting with Helen Cutter wearing off. Maybe it was the general havoc of the ARC building, or maybe it was one of his underlings approaching him with a very nervous question as to whether or not he was actually dead, but Philip felt more and more back at his element, and once he and the two women entered the ARC's conference room, he was like his old self almost completely.

"Ah, Dr. Burton, Dame Freisse, such a pleasure of seeing you again, alive and in good health!" the minister said cheerfully. "Isn't that right, James?"

"Oh yes," the look on Lester's face could probably stun a small animal at thirty paces. "Dame, Danny Quinn told me that you were dead."

"Of course," Helen said down perfectly as ease as if this was a regular day for her – and maybe it was. "Good for him. And where's Mr. Quinn now?"

There was a pause as Lester continued to drill Helen with his gaze, hoping for something more, perhaps – but nothing was forthcoming.

"Well, glad to see that here we are, and Dame, please forgive James. Earlier today he called to inform that Dr. Burton was dead as well – he went positively morbid since several of his employees have died on him in their line of duty he went positively morbid."

"That's a good reason," Burton agreed easily, "but why hold our conference here? Why not back at your office?"

"Because, it's a complicated story," the minister floundered, but Lester hadn't.

"While the minister was criticizing me about our... tensions, Philip, your... successor has called and suggested that since the ARC had led to your demise, Prospero and ARC's partnership will be dissolving."

"Well, the former can be sent out of the window since both I and Ms. Leonard are very much alive," Philip said dryly, "but as for the latter, well, both I and James agreed that public and private enterprises don't mix very well, and maybe it _is_ time to dissolve this awkward to put it lightly partnership, after all!"

"Impossible! It was also pointed out at that meeting that the ARC was floundering on its own and it needed Prospero's support to succeed-"

"We don't!" Lester snapped suddenly. "Just now we fixed a mess that Philip made-"

"Ah, but that mess occurred because you didn't share the information that you had with Dr. Burton before, now did you?" Helen's voice was quite professional itself at the moment.

"Excuse me?" red blotches appeared on Lester's cheeks. "Dame, you-"

"You're forgiven, James, and you know that I know what I am talking about – I am not wholly out of this world, you know?" Helen looked James right in the eye. "I dare you to prove me wrong, James," she added softly with just a hint of a challenge.

"What's your angle in this, _Dame_?" James Lester's voice was barely more than a growl.

"Not sure," Helen leaned back. "I guess I am just not interested in being roomed with three men who are about to go into a fight for dominance of some sort or another, and these are never fun for the womenfolk. So, can we _please_ start over now?"

"Exactly! Dame Freisse makes sense, Dr. Burton," April sounded far less confident than the other woman, but still... "Clearly we need to work with the ARC since we've gotten involved with these time anomalies, and working at cross-purposes with them, well, I don't know. It just doesn't sound _right_."

The two men, largely ignoring the minister looked at each other. "I don't see how exactly we can refuse them," Lester admitted, sounding very unhappy. "Do you, Philip?"

"No, James," Philip admitted, sounding rather thoughtful himself. "Let's shake on it, James."

And that's what they did.

_TBC_


	3. Settling down

**Settling down**

_Disclaimer: see previous chapters._

The return of the ARC did not start well: Helen Cutter – or Dame Freisse – or whoever she actually was, was the first person they met when they returned, so Connor's exclamation "From what pit of Hell did you crawl out of?" was, perhaps, justified.

"Well, I could say something mystical, like 'a sphinx can never die', but honestly? Odds are that your own meddling with the fabric of space and time has perhaps erased the bit where I _do_ die," Helen shrugged calmly. "Or perhaps I'm not Helen at all, but a totally different person, a look-alive if you will? In any case, young man," (somehow she managed to make 'young man' sound like 'dog shit') "your boss, Dr. Burton, needs to talk to you."

Connor blinked and looked at the older woman slowly. "Philip and I, we really erased the time period when you did die? Well-"

"Anyways, go and talk to him," Helen said gentler, giving Connor a noticeable push. "He is your boss still and wants to talk to you about the errors of the past, would you?"

Connor – who was still deflated from the latest bit of knowledge – wordlessly complied with her request and left.

"And as for the rest of you," James Lester spoke from his position up the staircase, "we're going to have a brief meeting, starting about a minute ago in my office. Move!"

/

"So, Dr. Burton, you wanted to see me?" Connor asked slowly as he entered Philip's local office. April, he noticed absently, was there as well. "Am I, uh, fired?"

"No," Philip replied firmly. "Connor, your methods were not particularly sound, but then again, neither were mine. We all had our secret agendas and they all exploded in our faces, haven't they?"

"Even Helen's," Connor muttered slowly. "So, you want to do what?"

"Clear the air between us," April replied instead, "starting with the fact that it was I who have cooked up these Helen Cutter videos to give Philip encouragement, only it all gotten out of hand-"

Connor sat down on a nearby chair. "Can I have the long version, please?"

April and Philip Burton exchanged looks. "Well," April exhaled, "here goes..."

/

"And that brings us up to date," Lester finished in his trademark manner. "Any questions?"

"The daughter of Vigdis, here, and we can't do anything about her!" Matt exclaimed. "We're doomed."

"Don't worry, we'll take care of her – if she misbehaves while you and Emily go to meet her mother," Abby said consolingly.

"Um, about that-" Matt said, but both Abby and Emily glared at him. "Yes, we're going, aren't we?"

"Excuse me! But how exactly _are_ you going to get there?" Lester asked, but Emily just _looked_ at him. "Never mind, this is the ARC, if there's any means of getting to the past from the present, it'll be here. Anything else?"

"This woman – Freisse, or Helen, or whatever her name is – she sounds as honourable person. I think we can work with her," Emily exhaled.

"We can't! She sought to destroy humanity!" Abby exhaled. "And worked with Leek!"

"Actually, regarding Leek? She settled that account quite a while ago before she got rid of Christine," Lester confessed, "and as for humanity... look. She's not going to be working with us, I'm sure of it. She just has shares in the ARC, which is all."

"Well, if that's just the case, we may be able to handle, it maybe," Abby nodded and fell silent. The ARC's future, so secure two or three hours ago, was entering turbulent waters once more.

End


End file.
